Every year at this time I clear away some of the clutter on my desk from the previous year: clipped articles, notes to myself and more. Why? To quote the Jan. 2 page from my new Spanish/English desk calendar, “Me gustan los nuevos comienzos” — I like new beginnings.

Put on your gloves and help me dig in.

Scads of wads

A small white trash bag showed up on my desk in October with a note from our receptionist that began: “NOT TRASH!” A peek within was not reassuring on that count: Inside were a few brown, brittle, wadded-up newspaper pages from November 1935 editions of the Pomona Progress-Bulletin and Ontario (Weekly) Record.

They had been used as insulation for some eight decades before a contractor found them in a wall in Chino and thought we might like them. “If not, he would like them back,” the receptionist wrote. This meant that while I couldn’t muster the enthusiasm to look at them, I also couldn’t throw them out.

So the bag sat on a corner of my desk — until Monday, when I pulled out the wads of dirty, torn pages. A few visible highlights:

• A large advertisement for Pomona’s Fox Theatre touted movies that would be playing soon, among them the Marx Brothers’ “A Night at the Opera” (“The Funniest Comedy in Ten Years”), “Mutiny on the Bounty” with Charles Laughton, Clark Gable and Franchot Tone, and “Sylvia Scarlett.”

• A brief about a man’s death by heart attack was headlined, in the stately style of the era, “Uplander is Suddenly Summoned.”

That’s about as interesting as it got. I put the trash back in the trash bag, wiped down my desk and washed my hands, then phoned the contractor, who said he didn’t want the papers back. Now he tells me.

The 47 conspiracy

At Pomona College, the number 47 was randomly chosen in the 1960s to see what significance it might have around campus. Examples have included the number of students in the first graduating class, the number of characters in the school motto and more. It’s become a popular part of campus lore. (I wrote about the phenomena in 2011 for its, yes, 47th anniversary.)

A titanic Troutt

A woman named Edwina Troutt was among the survivors when the Titanic went down in 1912. An exhibit at the Reagan Library early in 2017 had a display card about the Massachusetts woman, noting that she relocated to Southern California in 1916, “living in Beverly Hills, Pomona and Hermosa Beach.” Reader Syd Swearingen snapped a photo and alerted me.

My colleague Joe Blackstock dug up some biographical info on her, but we couldn’t find any mention of her Pomona years. Presumably they were placid compared to her Titanic voyage. I’ll revisit this if more about Troutt surfaces. She died at 100 in Hermosa Beach in 1984.

Bummer

“Pomona had a Surf Board Club as early as 1889 using locally made boards, but surfing’s real popularity began in 1907…” wrote D.J. Waldie in an essay on SoCal summertime traditions. I could never find anything more on Pomona’s pioneering role in surfing. Waldie later told me he believes that fact came from a brief item in the Los Angeles Herald for 1889. Other than the chance to interact with the author of the classic paean to suburbia, “Holy Land,” this was kind of a wipeout.

This and that

A few random items found:

• Clippings about the openings of the Marciano Art Foundation in L.A. and the Wende Museum in Culver City, both of which have local connections. The former is in the Millard Sheets-designed 1961 Scottish Rite Temple, and the latter may finally be displaying a civil defense siren from Claremont. I still haven’t been to either. Maybe in 2018.

• A note from a reader to call him because “there’s a great story waiting for you in SB.” It’s still waiting, as I don’t cover San Bernardino.

• Not only Christmas cards from 2017, but one from 2016.

• A drink coaster from Upland’s old Magnolia’s Peach, sent to me by a reader. I’m using it right now.

Reynolds rap

A reader named Bill left me a voice mail in January that began, “You never said anything about Debbie Reynolds being at Montclair Plaza on opening day.”

A note in which I transcribed his voice message has been on my desk all year. Bill told me how everyone was waiting for Reynolds to arrive on opening day to cut the ribbon. When her limo pulled up, 15-year-old Bill ran up and the driver tried to stop him, but Reynolds said “let this young man in,” kindly shook his hand and posed with him for a photo. “That was the kind of person she was,” Bill said.

Perhaps so, but none of that is in the historical record. The mall opened Aug. 5, 1968, two days after a fund-raising preview event, and in Daily Report coverage, “there is no mention of Debbie Reynolds at either event,” according to the Ontario City Library’s historian.

I’m not saying this didn’t happen — although it may not have — but perhaps the circumstances were different than the young man remembered them.

Since 1997, David Allen has been taking up valuable newsprint and pixels at the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, where he is a columnist and blogger (insidesocal.com/davidallen). Among his specialties: city council meetings, arts and culture, people, places, local history, dining and a log in a field that resembled the Loch Ness monster. The Illinois native has spent his newspaper career in California, starting in 1987 at the Santa Rosa News-Herald and continuing at the Rohnert Park-Cotati Clarion, Petaluma Argus-Courier and Victor Valley Daily Press. A resident of Claremont who roots for the St. Louis Cardinals and knows far too much about Marvel Comics, the Kinks and Frank Zappa's Inland Valley years, he is the author of two collections of columns: "Pomona A to Z" and "Getting Started."

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